Is Defunding the Police a Good Idea?

Описание: The question of policing will always bedevil a civil society. Policing is an essential means of reducing violence; in a state of anarchy, citizens will be forced to resort to taking personal security into their own hands, resulting in chaos and endemic violence. But ensuring that the police don’t become a criminal force unto themselves, victimizing the people they’re meant to protect, is a difficult task. As the Roman poet Juvenal memorably put it: Who will guard the guardians?

The U.S. is now painfully confronting this question. The brutal killing of black Minneapolis man George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin has sparked an unprecedented wave of protests across the entire nation, many of them violent. The protesters, which enjoy broad popular support, are demanding an end to racism in policing, curbs on police brutality, and a general reduction in funding and power for police departments.

But beyond this specific incident looms the larger question of policing in the U.S. There are no shortage of strategies that have proven to reduce police brutality -- for example, hiring more diverse forces, making it easier to sue the police for misconduct, making it easier to fire bad officers and reducing police access to military gear and weapons.

And then there’s the question of economic measures. As evidenced by signs reading “defund the police,” many protesters (and some academics) want to see cities reduce the amount of money that state and local governments spend on law enforcement.

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